St Thomas Street Plan 2017

Bermondsey St/St Thomas St heritage under threat for High Rise – Again

Come along to our Consultation Coffee Point at Globe House (corner of Bermondsey St and Crucifix Lane) for more information on the background to this new ambush and/or to write to the Council to express your views. Better still, come in and help us with this campaign. We have set up a 3d model of the immediate area to show how extreme this plan is. We will also be using it to model a more community-sensitive alternative treatment of the all-important St Thomas St sites – with your input.

Object to this attack on the character of the area

Please write to the Council with your objections.
To help construct your letter, key points are listed below.
You can also download the template letters at the bottom of this page, add your address, then print and sign the letter.

NSP53 Objection Letter – Key Points

• I object to Council’s proposals to designate the area at the junction of Bermondsey Street and St Thomas Street, as well as adjacent parts of St Thomas Street, as a high-rise development zone.

• I am a local resident / business owner / worker / a visitor to the area

• The inclusion of Bermondsey Street and its Conservation Area to any degree whatsoever in a high-rise zoning exercise is entirely inappropriate, given the existing architecture and heritage.

• The Council should not be looking to accommodate specific private developers by earmarking sites in their ownership for exceptionally high density and environmentally insensitive redevelopment.

• The area designated NSP53 by the Council is a heritage-sensitive one. Of obvious importance are the unique Vinegar Yard warehouse and the listed St Thomas Street viaduct arches by eminent Victorian railway architect Charles Henry Driver. All these heritage assets must be preserved not only as to their fabric but also as to their setting. This obviously makes the area denoted NSP53 unsuitable for high-rise development.

• The preservation of an agreeable pedestrian environment in St Thomas Street is important. This cannot be achieved with high-rise redevelopment of the street at any location along its length because of the obvious implications of overshadowing and wind-tunnelling. In this respect the Council’s apparent proposal to collaborate in the facilitation of high-rise development with different developers in relation to the area designated as NSP52 is equally inappropriate.